


Dirt

by WordsareBetterthanNumbers



Series: Pieces Of Writting I Liked [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Car Accidents, Clues, Dark, Death, Dirt - Freeform, F/M, Horror, Kidnapping, Mystery, Psychological Horror, Revenge, Survival Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2019-03-07 00:24:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13422774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WordsareBetterthanNumbers/pseuds/WordsareBetterthanNumbers
Summary: She woke up in the middle of a forest with nothing but a chain around her ankle.





	Dirt

She instantly knew something was wrong when she woke up shivering in the middle of the night. Her room was always hot. She always slept with at least four blankets. She always made sure that nothing could disturb her slumber.

But tonight that had not been the case. Her fingers felt so cold that she couldn’t feel them. Her lips felt cracked, and her cheeks hurt every time she moved. Something was definitely not right. She rubbed her eyes only to find her hand covered with what felt like dirt. Startled, she sat up only to find that the material under her palms wasn’t the soft fabric of her bed, but dirt, leafs and probably bugs.

Her breath sped up, along with her heart rate. In the dim light of wherever she was, she looked at the palms of her hands. Her eyes brimmed with tears and a sob threatened to escape her throat. Not dirt, she thought to herself, please, let it not be dirt.

But what else could it possibly be?

Her heart rate sped up even more, and she started sweating. Dizziness took over her body, the lack of oxygen making the world spin like crazy. She felt something touch her leg and she gave a strangled scream. She could feel her hands grabbing her leg, threatening to pull her under the dirt to lay beside her. The sobs now tore through her body without much resistance. She couldn’t contain them just like she couldn’t contain her panic.

Then, the voices started. Calling her name. They sounded far away, but right next to her ears at the same time. She cried for them to stop, begged for them to shut up, but they remained.

She curled up into herself, making sure that the only things that could touch the dirt were things that were covered by fabric. Things that prevented the dirt from reaching her skin.

A long time passed until she could calm down. Or so it seemed to her. It could have been days, just as easily as it could have been mere minutes. The truth is that she couldn’t really tell the time when she had one of her episodes. It always felt like an eternity to her.

Then as the quietness of the place washed over her, she realised that she hadn’t been dragged down into the dirt. She hadn’t been swallowed by the filthy thing. She wasn’t being touched by any hands of the undead. She willed herself to stop shaking. Willed herself to stretch her joints, little by little, coming out of her safe cocoon and into reality.

She opened her eyes. There were trees all around her. Trees so high she couldn’t see their tops in the middle of the night. She, however, was laying in the middle of a clearing. A pretty little thing in daylight, but scary and suffocating at night.

The darkness loomed over her and made it hard to make out the most critical parts, like if she was all alone. Or if something was looking at her through the gaps in the trees.

Her eyes got used to the colour of the night quickly enough. That is when she noticed the box. She crawled to the box hesitantly. It was made of cardboard, sort of like the boxes that she had seen people in crime shows use to store information. There was something scrawled on the lid, but she couldn’t quite read the words without any light.

Her fingers worked the lid open before she could think about it. It could have been three thousand different things that could have killed her or injured her gravely, but she wasn’t thinking straight. Inside, two things. A written letter and a torch.

“Lizzie?”

Her head whipped around at the sound of her name, and she felt her panic attack starting again. She couldn’t will herself to answer.

“Lizzie, it's me. Aaron.”

Silence.

Her breath had been taken away by fear. Ripped out of her throat by her name being whispered in the shadows. Even if he did claim to be the person that she had learned to love the most in the world, she couldn’t will her heart rate to calm down.

“Lizzie, I know that’s you. I heard you screaming.”

She swallowed and found her throat completely dry. In a moment of delusion, she wished for a glass of water and found herself disappointed by the prospect of not being able to get it. With hands trembling, she reached into the box and took out the torch. She ran her hand through it and clicked the on the button when she found it. The light was blinding and dizzying since she couldn’t stop her hand from shaking. She looked around the clearing until she saw him and tears started to streak down her face in relief. It was really him. She was not crazy.

“They gave you a torch?” He asked, and through the mush in her mind, she could recognise a hint of terror in between the humorous lines, “That’s completely unfair. I’ve had to sit here in the dark trying to make out things for nearly an hour now.”

She could only muster the energy to say his name, and he smiled back.

“Yes,” He said, “It’s me.”

That’s all she could say now. His name over and over. Until it didn’t seem like a word anymore. She started crawling towards him, making her way through the clearing, one hand on the ground, the other on her torch. She only managed to crawl a few meters, though, because soon enough she was stopped. There was a soft tug on her ankle, and she screamed. Now, it did feel like they had gotten her. She turned to look at her ankle only to find a chain tied to it.

Her head didn’t stop spinning with fear, but her heart slowed down to a slow thump. “What’s happening?”

“I don’t know.”

“Aaron, why are we tied up?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you have a box, too?”

“Yes.”

“And a letter?”

“Yes.”

She tried untying herself. She tried taking off the lock that held the chain around her small ankle, but her attempts were futile. She just managed to get herself more worked up about the amount of dirt in her socks. Dirt. Dirt. Dirt. Why did it have to be dirt?

“There is no use in trying to untie it. I have tried everything.”

She shook the chain once again and tried to break it with her bare hands, but her flesh was no match for steel. She laid her head on her knee and felt another fit of sobs forming in her throat. She heard shuffling and then heard Aaron, he sounded closer than he had a few seconds before.

“Darling, you need to calm down.”

That only made her shake harder.

“We need to get out of this mess. But we can’t if you are not strong enough.”

She didn’t stop shaking, but she did look up.

“I need you to grab that torch and read the letter on your box.”

A tremor ran down her back.

“Why?”

“It has to be there for a reason.”

“Have you read yours?”

“It’s only a date. I can’t quite make out all of the numbers. It’s too dark.”

The shivers didn’t stop as she crawled back towards the box. Neither did the tears. She grabbed the envelope with shaking hands and opened it clumsily. Inside there was a thin piece of paper, like the ones you wouldn’t expect to find used for anything else but important notices. She took it out gingerly, as the thing might explode in her hands.

It looked old and frail. Tainted with stains of all kinds. She unfolded it only to find a short poem written with neat handwriting.

She heard Aaron shift behind her and she had to stop herself from jumping.

“What does it say?”

As her adventure ended

yours was about to begin,

as no one can fathom the pain of her family

as they think of what the child’s future might have been.

“Lizzie?”

Dirt. Dirt. Dirt.

Why did it always have to be dirt?

“Lizzie, what’s wrong?”

Although, it was not always dirt. Sometimes, it's the smell of sweet honey. Sometimes, it's the loud screech of tires. Or a blue mailbox. But yes, most of the time it is dirt. Even the tiniest speck causes her to run towards the bathroom and scrubbed her hands until they are red and stinging. Her food almost always tastes of dirt for about a week following that incident.

Dirt. Dirt. Dirt.

Sometimes she stills hears her singing in the back seat of her car. Sometimes, her phone rings with the ringtone she set for her text messages. Sometimes, her name spills involuntarily from her lips when they pass the shabby tattoo parlour on the outskirts of town. She takes detours of up to fifteen minutes to avoid that tattoo parlour now. The pain too fresh for her to bear.

Dirt. Dirt. Dirt.

“Elizabeth, you are scaring me.”

Elizabeth, you are driving way to fast!

She was. She had been. Almost thirty miles over the speed limits.

Of course, I am! How else are we supposed to get there in time?

The truth was she just wanted to feel the speed run through her veins. They were just in time, and they would have been if they hadn’t been going that fast.

They sped past a light blue mailbox. Aaron laughing with glee at the air ruffling his hair. The music never stops as they crossed the intervention.

She doesn't remember the song that was playing as she woke up. She just remembers that both Aaron and she had been wearing seatbelts. Jessica had not.

Dirt had remained under her nails after the funeral. She had had to scrub her hands clean of it for hours. Then she had gotten rid of all things that contained dirt in her house. Her parents had allowed it. Now she wondered if they had been too lenient. Getting rid of all dirt had made it her greatest weakness.

Dirt. Dirt. Dirt.

   When Aaron’s hand grabbed her arm, she didn’t question it. She didn’t question how he had managed to get out of the chain. She only let him wrap his hands around her, and she grabbed them in return. Then she felt it; as he whispered into her ear calming words. His hands were coated in dirt.

   “How did you get out?”

   “I dug,” He answered like it made sense at all. “The maniac thought that digging the chain up would be enough to hold me back.”

   “I don’t think I will ever be able to touch dirt, ever again.” She had sobbed to one of Jessica’s relatives, once the grave had been completely filled up. “I don’t think I’m strong enough.”

   “But it’s alright now. I just have to dig you out, and then we will be alright.”

   “No. We won’t.”

   “Yes. It’s all right,” He said, wrapping her arms around her as she shook with terror, “It’s over now.”

   She heard something coming from the woods. Twigs snapped. Leafs crunched. Animals fled in terror. Her heart stopped.

“It’s not,” She whispered back. “It hasn’t even begun.”


End file.
